Mildred Faintly
Mildred Faintly received a doctorate in Classics from Brown, taught Classics and History of Religions at Haifa University, and is presently a contributor to the Jewish Women’s Archive. Her translation of Else Lasker-Schüler’s first book of poetry, Styx is now available from the publisher Ben Yehuda Books, and from Amazon; her translation of the Ancient Egyptian tale, The Case of Horus vs. Seth, magnificently illustrated by Phil Blank, has been published by Daniel 13.
Her life project is to provide accessible, elegant, literary translations of the most important poetry written by women world-wide. This will include:
collections of folk poetry with significant content of undisputed female authorship:
(from the Bible) The Song of Solomon, the Song of Deborah;
The Therigatha
Woman in Chinese. The complete dossier of great poetry written by women in classical Chinese: an introduction on how women appear in Chinese characters, the songs composed by women in The Classic of Poetry, and the poems of Li Ching Jao.
Individual women poets:
Vidya (Sanskrit)
Gippius (Russian)
Mascha Kaléko (German)
Rachel Blaustein (Hebrew)
As part of the same project, but deserving their own category, are the works of the great lesbian poets:
(from Yiddish) of the complete poems of Anna Margolin, titled Lower East Suicide.
Sappho, complete, Greek and English, on archive.org: Sappho for Girls. Available for purchase on Amazon here.
Renée Vivien, Tentative Melodies, to be followed soon by her other books of poetry.
The Margolin, Sappho, and Vivien are looking for a publisher.
Mildred Faintly has self-published on archive.org her own book of poetry, A Peep out of Me ; it is also available for purchase on Amazon here.
” Other people’s poetry is like other people’s pets: untidy, annoying, and nothing you want in your house. If only it were like other people’s perversions: conveyed in few words and endlessly entertaining. Well, Ms. Faintly’s poetry is like a perverted pet that does amusing tricks. Hope that helps.” [This book is also in search of a publisher].
In her work as a reviewer and editor here, though intrinsic merit is always the decisive consideration, Mildred is actively interested in writing by women and LGBTQ persons.
